Person · short entry
John Herschel
Astronomer, son of William Herschel, whose poem of 1837 AD tells of The Fall of Neith; the same year, at the Cape of Good Hope, he discovered the Cat’s Paw Nebula.
John Herschel was an astronomer, the son of William Herschel and Mary Baldwin Herschel. He was born in 1792 AD, fifteen years after The Fall of Neith.
In 1837 AD he wrote a short poem on The Fall. It is the only record in the archive to tie The Chæmbrolāmbra to The Fall, and the only one to say where Neith rests now: in the Kitties’ Paw.
The poem§
When Borgin fled to Titan moon,
He beseeched the Rump of Doom.
Victorious Neith in Venusian umbra,
Heeded not the dawn of the Chæmbrolāmbra;
It vanished into the Neith-Taker’s jaw.
And is said to rest in the Kitties’ Paw.— John Herschel, 1837 AD
At the Cape§
From 1834 to 1838 AD, John Herschel lived at the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, to survey the southern sky as his father had surveyed the northern. On 7 June 1837 AD he found there a glowing cloud of gas and young stars in the constellation Scorpius, and entered it in his catalogue as h 3678. Astronomers now call it the Cat’s Paw Nebula.
It was the same year he wrote his poem on The Fall of Neith, which ends in the Kitties’ Paw.